Author: Bob

Pain pulsed through Fleet’s head as he woke up. He wasn’t sure how awake he was because of the dark. As he laid there, the memory of his problems came back. Old straw and wood splinters jabbed into the skin of his backside. Waking up came faster.

He listened for any signs of his attacker. All he heard was the soft sound of the wind through the cracks in the barn walls. That reminded him that he was frozen to the bone.

Rolling over, he saw his flashlight on the floor on the other side of the wall of the animal pen. He needed to get the light and then get back to help.

Trying to stand, he realized two things. First, his wrists were still tied. The second: his pants were still down.

He reached down to grab his pants and pull them back on. He could only get them a little way over his knees before the angle of his bonds kept his hands from moving further. Nevermind, good enough, time to get out.

Standing didn’t work yet, and he wasn’t sure how to get out of the pen. Without a light, he couldn’t check for a latch of anything else helpful.

He stared at his light just out of reach. The space between the bottom slat of the pen and the next was wide enough, he could probably roll or crawl through. A minute later and he was dirty, splinter-filled, and out.

He grabbed the flashlight and a sense of hope flushed through his being. He showed it around the barn as best he could, looking for any threats. He couldn’t see all the places, but the ones he could see were enemy free.

Good, good, time to stand up. He rolled closer to the pen. Trying to maintain his grip on the light, he used the slats to gradually pull himself into a standing position. Hurray, progress!

Another quick look around showed him the path to the door. He headed to it.

As soon as he took a few steps, his pants fell to his ankles again. He stopped abruptly, almost falling over. This was going to be an issue.

He reached down to adjust his pants. Last time, the rope on his wrists kept him from pulling his pants all the way up just because he couldn’t hold them and twist his arms enough. This time, he had the added challenge of holding the flashlight.

Still, he got them just over the knees and decided it would be good enough. He needed to get out of the barn.

Holding the waistband of his sweatpants and the flashlight, he waddled as fast as he could to the door. He found that placing his feet as wide apart as possible added extra friction to prevent his pants from sliding. It slowed his progress but not as much as having his feet tangled in sweatpants.

Through the door, the sight of the van renewed his run. Waddling as fast as he could, he made it across the hard ground. The autumn wind wrapped itself around every uncovered part, stealing the heat from his body, what was left of it.

Nearing the van, his right foot caught on a weed, sending him down on the remains of the gravel. With his hands holding his pants, he couldn’t break his fall. He closed his eyes tightly, anticipating the collision with the ground.

His face skidded across the dirt and rocks, shredding skin. As he laid there, the pain in his shoulders flared, letting him know that they hit hard too. He let out a moan and rolled over.

The pain temporarily muted his terror. Still, he was almost to the van.

From the barn, he heard a sound. It was a grunt, the grunt of a huge animal.

The terror flooded back.

Rolling back over, tried to stand. He couldn’t hold his pants and use his hands to push up at the same time, so pushing himself up won. In a moment, he stood again and started toward the vehicle.

With one step, his trousers dropped again.

As close as he was, he decided to leave it. With all his concentration, he hopped the rest of the way to the van and around to the back.

With his hands tied together, he pounded on the door of the van. “Matt, let me in. It’s Fleet. Let me in. I’ve been attacked.”

He heard the shuffling as Matt moved from his monitoring station and toward the door. The van opened up and Matt’s very concerned face appeared. “What happened?”

“I got attacked. Some old guy. He tied me up and hit me. He pulled my pants down and said he was gonna do butt stuff.” The story rushed out of him.

“He tied you up?”

Fleet held up his hands. “Yeah, see?”

Matt looked at Fleet’s hands. They showed no signs of being tied.

Fleet saw it too. No ropes. No scarring from the rough fibers. No bruises.

Shock and confusion filled his face. “No really. There were ropes around my wrists. I couldn’t move. I don’t know.”

Matt started back to his station. “Ok, we’ll document it. Just pull your pants back on and get in.”

Beta Team

We sat at the bottom of the stairs trying to get ourselves straightened out. Being knocked down by the slamming trapdoor was bad enough. The memory of the piggy picnic was going to take some time.

The lights came on in the basement. They were just a couple of kerosene lamps, but it was a shock. We could see the whole place.

The farmer from the pig feast stood by a shelf near the stairs. He did something with one of the small boxes. At the far end, by the crates with the rifles, another man sat on the ground.

It took a moment, but I thought I recognized the second man as the one who shushed Danny before the, well, the incident. He seemed unconscious. His clothes looked like they were from the thirties just like the others.

As we watched, the young guy seemed to wake up. He slowly looked around, first just with his eyes and then by moving his whole head. When he got to the farmer, his face decided anger was the way to go.

He reached slowly toward his foot. I wondered why. Pistol in an ankle holster explained it.

The guy stood up, pointing his pistol at the farmer. He yelled, “Get your hands up where I can see them.”

The farmer raised his hands part way up, maybe shoulder height and a little to the side. As he did, he turned to look at the man. “Well, look who’s up. Now that you’re up, what do you plan to do about it?”

“I’m going out those stairs,” he said, pointing the gun our way. Motioning away from that line, he said to the farmer, “Get over there. I’m leaving and you aren’t going to stop me.”

The farmer started walking in the ordered direction. “You think you’re leaving? I don’t think you’ll get very far.”

“I’ll get far enough if I shoot you.”

The farmer chuckled. “If you shoot me, boy, you better hit me square. If you don’t, I’m gonna mess you up.”

The sound of the pistol shot blasted through my ears, deafening me as it rang through the whole basement. At the same time, I watched the pistol eject its shell casing. The shiny brass casing tumbled through the air, hit the floor, bounced a few times, and rolled to a stop where it sat until it was kicked a little while ago.

The farmer spun with a bit of blood flying out of a chest wound. As he crumpled, his body fell onto the blood stain we found earlier. I watched as he collapsed, and all rigidness left his frame.

The young guy ran past us, starting up the stairs, then he stopped. He looked back at the body, up the stairs, and then back at the body. He furrowed his brow and pursed his lips, deep in thought. Then he made up his mind and went back to the body.

Grabbing the farmer’s shoulders, the guy flipped the farmer over and out of the pool of blood. Bracing himself, he pulled the body over to the stairs and then underneath.

The spectacle drew us in and all three of us moved around to see better.

The man settled the corpse under the stairs and reached past it to grab a tarp from the top of a box.

In a flash, the farmer opened his folding knife and ran it into the young guy, just under the ribs and upward.

The young guy made a gulping sound and collapsed on top of the farmer.

The farmer whispered, “Mess you up.” A smile took his lips. Then the farmer went limp again.

The lantern lights faded to dark.

From the top of the stairs, we heard a clicking sound. Danny and Sarah turned to look, shining their lights in that direction at the same time.

The trapdoor opened.

Alpha Team

I started by jumping out of my skin, figuratively anyway. Whatever slammed the door sounded solid enough, and somehow not. I turned and pointed my camera rig toward the second floor balcony.

Turning to check, I say Emily and Mike sitting where they had been in their corner. Mike stared at the balcony, a lost and frightened expression filling his face. Emily seemed to have curled more tightly as though trying to disappear inside him.

A bright light pulled me back to the balcony. It was the light we had been getting all night, that damned combine out there somewhere. Now was not the time to be dealing with that, but a little light might show us what was going on. I’m not sure we really wanted to see that.

The light died to be replaced with the sounds of a scuffle. Shoes scraped across a floor. Muffled grunts and groans came from upstairs. Something large slammed against one of the wooden doors. A couple more grunts came, then another slam.

The door flew open.

“You should have drugged him more,” complained a voice. It wasn’t a voice I heard before and it seemed to come from some man struggling to do something.

“Nevermind that, just get him to the rail before he wakes up anymore.” It was a different voice, a different man working just as hard.

I looked back at my sister and her guy. Mike had dropped his face into her shoulder and neither of them was looking at the balcony. It was hard to tell in the dark, but I was sure they were shaking.

Looking at my hands where they held my camera rig, I saw that I was shaking too.

I squeezed my eyes shut and thought, “I really need to calm down. None of this can hurt me. Just stay focused and keep the camera pointed the right way. Focus on the camera.”

I don’t know how much that helped, but I gripped the camera rig more tightly. The solidness of the metal pipes fought against the unreal nature of what I heard.

The lights came back, but not just upstairs, they came through all the windows. Someone’s headlights flooded the house from the driveway. I turned to see who it was, looking out the window to do so.

Outside, all was dark. There were no headlights, no cars but ours, no magic combines that could explain everything away.

A deep, roaring voice bellowed, “Help!”

Spinning back to the balcony, I saw three men fighting. One wore old style striped pajamas and a rope around his neck. He was a large man, struggling against two others, one in overalls and another in a police uniform. The big guy was giving his all, but was out numbered and it looked like his hands were tied behind him.

To my left, the front door burst open. The front door with no actual door in the opening. Some people ran in. I couldn’t see anybody, but I just knew that some people came in. They were in a hurry and full of action. They just weren’t there.

The flashes and bangs of gunfire filled the room. The sound filled my ears and me, like it had something extra to it. Those bangs were something else. They were memories.

Looking at the balcony, I watched bullets rip through the bodies of the two men, the one in overalls and the cop. They fell backwards, bits of spray erupting from the holes in their bodies. Other bullets blasted holes in the wallpaper and the plaster behind, adding little clouds of powder to the scene.

Then everything slowed.

My cinema professors would have approved. The two gunshot victims continued falling, just more slowly. The blood spray and the plaster dust blossomed gently in their previous directions.

The large man, without the other two attached, lost balance. His eyes and mouth widened as he realized his situation. He struggled, trying to find any way to hold on with his hand still behind his back.

Gravity won and he fell off the balcony.

Only to stop a couple feet from the floor.

The rope pulled. A sickly noise, like a chicken being cut up for cooking, resonated through the room. The sudden tension on the rope caused the balcony to shudder.

The body swayed in the headlights that weren’t headlights, at least not anymore. As it spun around, I saw his face more clearly. With its eyes wide open, he looked at me with his last bit of life like he wanted me to remember something.

Then his eyes faded to blankness like they weren’t really eyes at all.

He disappeared. The rope disappeared. The two men on the balcony disappeared. The headlights, nope, they were gone too.

That’s when I recognized the face of the hanged man. It flashed back into my head as bright as a silver screen. The man was Bud, the old farmer who showed us around earlier.

Nope, couldn’t be it. Bud was probably the adult son of the hanged man, or some other relative.

Then everything stopped. The house calmed down and everything was done for the night. I felt like the house had told us everything it had to say.

I didn’t believe it for a minute. It was time to get my two stars and get out before the house or whoever was in it, changed its mind.

Going against training, I turned off my cameras. The next part didn’t need to be recorded.

“Emily? Mike? I think it’s over. We need to get back to the van. Are you ok to walk back to the van?”

I think the normality of my voice shook them out of their fear funk. I was going to have to remember “fear funk” for use in a script or something later. Whatever it was, it combined with a great desire to leave. They stood quickly and, as fast as they could while still holding each other, they got out the door and headed toward the van where Matt monitored everything and dispensed the coffee.

As I stepped off the porch, I turned for one more look. Yep, it was just a desolate old house, neglected until decay tore it down. Soon, it and its memories would be bulldozed away and there would be nothing left beyond a few legal deeds and some small articles at the local Historical Society. The way things had been going in the state, the Historical Society and its small town would probably follow in the next fifty years or so. Not super duper at all.

The cold October wind made Fleet wish he had worn more than sweatpants and sweatshirt. Even with the hood up, it was freezing. Fortunately, he always prided himself on being fast, so a quick run to the barn to find Beta Team would take no time.

He only had a general idea of where to find the door, so he passed his flashlight across the wall of the barn. Since the others cleared the area earlier, the door was the only part without a wall of weeds growing out of the foundations. A quick tug and he was in.

The darkness made him aware of how much natural light there had been outside. He couldn’t see anything that his small flashlight didn’t hit directly. Somehow, that made the darkness feel more like fog, swirling around him and hiding things.

“Danny! Sarah! Max! Where are you guys? We’ve been trying to reach you,” he called out. He pointed his flashlight around while waiting for the response.

“Hey guys! Where are you? Are you still here?”

Still no answer.

His brain filled with images of Beta Team all unconscious somewhere in the barn. He couldn’t imagine them being in the barn and still not answering his call. Maybe they were kidnapped?

He decided he needed to search, at least a little, before reporting back to Matt. His light showed the slats of some kind of animal pens on the wall nearest him.

“You’re real nosey, ain’t you?” The gravelly whisper seemed to come from both sides as a damp breath on each ear.

Fleet jumped and turned, losing his grip on his flashlight and dropping it.

Someone punched him in the gut, coming in under the ribs and knocking all the air from him.

“Nosey like a woman,” the voice said. “I know what to do with a woman.” It sounded like a man’s voice, but with something missing, or just wrong. It carried a resonance as though passing through a long tube.

A large hand grabbed Fleet by the shoulder, spun him around, and shoved his chest into the top rail of the nearest pen. A fist slammed into the back of his head. Bright stars erupted into his eyes as the pain flooded his brain.

He felt a body press against his back, holding him against the rail. The man’s pelvis ground against Fleet’s rear. The stench of old sweat filled his nose.

Panic and dizziness joined together in Fleet’s brain as he realized how much trouble he was in. He shouted, “Help!”

Another fist to the skull stopped his noise.

Calloused hands pulled Fleet’s wrists together and wrapped them in some sort of grass rope. Fleet couldn’t see it, but felt the fiber dig into his skin as the bindings tightened.

A hand grabbed the waistband of his sweatpants and pushed them down. Most the way down his thigh, the hand let go to be replaced by the rough sole of a boot. The boot pushed them to his ankles, scraping his leg the whole way.

The panic reasserted itself. Fleet pushed back against the rail, trying to get away. The body slammed into him again, pushing him back.

A bright light arrived in the barn at the end with the hay door. Two lights. They seemed to be headlights of a car, but dim.

“You wait here till I get back,” said the voice.

The force of the pressing body pulled away, giving Fleet a moment of hope.

The large hands grabbed the sweatpants gathered around Fleet’s ankles and lifted. The force was enough to lever him over the top railing and into the animal pen. His head crashed into the barn floor.

Everything went dark.

Beta Team

I set my camera rig down so I could help the others push on the trap door. All three of us put our backs against it and pushed. At first, we only got about a half inch of movement. Then, it moved eight inches. Not enough to crawl through, but maybe we could see something.

The whole barn lit up. The whole barn except the basement we were stuck in. The light seemed like a mix of kerosene lanterns and car headlights.

We all looked out.

Danny said, “Maybe they can help us.”

The skinny, sweaty guy beside Danny, held a finger to his lips to shush him and then pointed toward the barn. He slowly turned his head to look out. Then he wasn’t there.

Danny and Sarah stared at the place he had been and then slowly turned to each other. Their eyes widened, but so did their grins. They were so excited by all this crap.

I wasn’t. I pressed myself against the stairs I sat on. It took a moment to realize I wasn’t breathing. Who the hell was that guy and where the hell did he come from? Screw that! Where the hell did he go?

Danny shook my shoulder and whispered, “Hey, get the camera.”

I moved on automatic pilot, but camera was a normal thing I could do. I grabbed my rig, put it in place, and adjusted so I could video whatever was going on in the lighted barn and not think about Mr. Disappear.

In the barn, some farmer in bib overalls talked to two guys in old fashioned suits. They stood in front of an old fashioned car. I was never an expert in those things, but it looked like a scene from a nineteen-thirties movie, you know, with gangsters and stuff.

The two guys in suits went to the back of the car, fought around getting something out of the trunk, and then brought another guy. The new dude stumbled and held his hands in front of him. It looked like his hands were tied together. As he got into the better light, his face showed signs of a serious beating. Blood spots splattered on his muscle shirt. His dark slacks looked torn, and he walked barefoot. Ah crap, this was going to get more like a gangster movie.

The farmer grabbed a rope from one of the barn posts. The rope ran up to the loft where it attached to a pulley. A metal hook hung from the other end. The farmer ran the hook around the ropes holding the prisoner’s wrists. With a couple of quick tugs, the prisoner hung from his wrists with his feet a few inches from the ground.

The farmer reached into a pocket of his overalls and drew out a large folding knife. He stepped closer to the nearest pig pen and tapped the wood. In our basement, the knocking sound echoed loudly like gunshots.

The front feet, I think they’re called trotters, and the head of a huge boar reared up out of the pen.

And there was the grunting that people said they heard. It bounced around the whole barn and in my head. If there had been anything in my bowel at that time, it would have left and taken my soul with it.

Our eyes stuck, watching the show, this gangster movie replaying a true story in a dark, empty barn on a cold, October night.

The hanging prisoner seemed to grow more aware of his surroundings. He started to kick and sway, struggling against the ropes.

The farmer seemed to laugh, but we didn’t hear any of it.

I realized that was the other unnatural feature of this vignette. We heard the knocking on the pen and the grunt of the pig, but nothing else. Silence muffled all the sounds like someone had hit the mute button.

The farmer unfolded his knife, revealing its blade.

The prisoner flailed around even more.

The farmer nodded to the two suited men. They grabbed the prisoner and held him still.

Slowly and carefully, the farmer made a slice across the prisoner’s belly, shirt and all. The prisoner’s facial expression showed the absolute agony of the cut, but we were still in Charlie Chaplain mode and couldn’t hear a thing.

The farmer made a couple of more cuts, carefully digging in deeper. The prisoner’s head rolled in agony, making the face of someone screaming.

Finally, the farmer wiped his knife on the prisoner’s side, cleaning the blade on the man’s shirt. Folding the knife, the farmer put it back in his pocket.

I will never forget what happened next. No amount of therapy, no amount of drinking, no amount of anything will ever stop the nightmares or day mares or any other mares after seeing that. Nothing can wash that away.

The farmer reached his fingers into the man’s belly through the open wounds. Struggling a little, he pulled something out. Once out a little ways, the farmer readjusted his grip and pulled slowly but firmly.

He was pulling out the man’s small intestine.

The prisoner’s head fell backward and his mouth formed a howl I could see and feel even if I couldn’t hear it.

The farmer walked toward the pig pen, spinning the suspended prisoner as he did. With a little more pulling, there was enough intestine to reach all the way to the boar.

Then the sound came back. Not all of it. Just the sound of the pig eating the man’s innards while the man was still alive.

The pig pulled and chewed, smacking and grunting as it fed. With each tug, the man’s body swayed toward the boar and then fell back as the intestine broke loose from his insides. It just seemed to go on and on.

And we stared, enraptured. We couldn’t help ourselves and we couldn’t help that man.

Eventually, with one last pull, the man stopped resisting. His head and legs fell limp. Too much was gone and so was he.

The farmer lowered the body, unhooked its hands, and then hefted the body into the hog pen.

He offered to shake hands with the two men in suits.

They chose to give small waves instead. They got back into their car, started it, and backed out of the barn.

With the headlights gone, the rest of the lights vanished too.

The trapdoor that had given us that eight inches of livestock show, slammed closed, knocking us back down the stairs.

Alpha Team

I followed Emily and Mike through the dining room and into the kitchen. Mike stopped at the top of the stairs to the basement. He looked down into the darkness. A bright green light illuminated the basement and his face, and then went away, flickering.

“The REM pod light is really going off,” he said. With his hand braced against the wall, he started down the steps.

Emily followed him, with me behind. The stairs were only wide enough for one of us at a time, so I couldn’t get good video of their faces. Still, their silhouettes against the green lighted basement walls came in flashes and were super duper, if I had been making a horror movie. But I wasn’t making a horror movie, I hoped.

With all of us down in the cramped space, I backed into the corner along the stair wall so I could try to get everything else in frame.

Mike stood against the wall where the shelves used to be. Emily stood closer to the stairs just because that was all the space available. Our little REM pod stood on three tiny legs in the corner opposite from me. The light on the top flashed.

“Do you think there’s something wrong with it?” Emily asked.

“I don’t know,” Mike said. “Maybe we just need to adjust its sensitivity. Before we mess with it, though, we should probably try an EVP to see if anybody’s here.”

I saw Emily turn her head to look at him. There wasn’t enough light to see her expression, but it kind of felt like she didn’t want anybody to be there.

She took a deep breath, let it out and started. Holding up her recorder, she asked, “Is there anyone here? Do you want to tell us something?”

The rate of the flashing increased.

“Good, good,” Mike said, staring at the REM pod. “Keep going.” He made a forwarding motion with his hand, directed at Emily.

She swallowed loudly, at least loud enough I heard it. “Do you have anything to do with John or Mary Rumpe?”

A red light joined the green one and the REM pod began beeping.

With flashing lights, it was difficult to tell, but it looked like Emily may have started shaking a little. I saw it in her hands mostly, but maybe her shoulders as well.

Her voice called out, “Do you know where we can find them? John and Mary, I mean.”

The beep turned into a constant stream.

“Mike,” she said. “I think something is holding my foot.”

“What?”

“I said, I think something is holding my foot. I can’t move my foot like something is holding it down.”

“I’ll take a look.” Mike started to turn her direction but stopped, almost falling. “Hold on, I’m caught on something.”

He turned on his flashlight and pointed it to his foot.

I tried to focus the camera on his light.

A hand from the ground had looped over his shoe, pulling it tight to the dirt floor.

We all froze, standing in the flashing red and green lights, with the shriek of the REM pod’s buzzer filling the small hole we were in.

Emily’s whole body shook and she was making short, fast breaths, hyperventilating.

I instinctively pressed further against the wall behind me.

Mike screamed with absolute terror, drowning out the REM pod and all other sounds.

All across the basement floor, boney hands erupted from the soil, reaching upward and grasping, skeletal fingers flailing.

Danny pulled hard and ripped his foot free. He continued his turn toward Emily and ran into her like he was trying to tackle her. He hit her hard enough to free her from the things holding her down. He half dragged and half carried her to the stairs and up.

I had a great camera angle on the whole thing as I watched them make it to the kitchen above, taking Mike’s flashlight with him.

A field of waving hands covered the floor, illuminated by the alternating red and green flashes. That’s when I felt the other hands, the ones coming from the walls. The walls where I was standing. The fingers that scratched at my clothes all up and down my body.

Some animalistic urge launched me forward and up the stairs, stumbling over them but not stopping. I burst into the kitchen and across toward the back door. Spinning, I pressed my back against the solidness of the door frame and held my camera rig toward the basement like some sort of protective talisman.

My heart pounded so loud I couldn’t hear my labored breathing, mouth hung open to let the air in and out faster. I blinked a couple of times, but never took my eyes off the red and green lights flickering just through that door to the pit.

The cool air from the outside door opening started to ground me. I was safe. I was going to be safe. Things would be ok. It was going to be fine.

The sound of the REM pod died off. Then the red flashes stopped. Slowly, the green light faded as well. Then, darkness. It felt like it was over.

Something in the back of my head reminded me, it could all start over again.

Time to be a cinematographer and find my subjects. Where were Emily and Mike?

Now that I wasn’t completely focused on the basement and its, I chose to call them issues, I saw more of my surroundings. The light from Mike’s flashlight came from the dining room.

Cautiously, I walked toward the dining room door. I didn’t completely take my attention from the basement door, but I tried not to think about why.

Mike sat in the corner of the dining room, not far from the front door. His arms wrapped around Emily who sat on his lap. His eyes stared into space, obviously in shock. Emily’s body trembled as she cried, her head curled down and against Mike’s chest.

This split me in two. Obviously I wanted to do what was best for my sister, and that did not involve filming her moment of emotional vulnerability. On the other hand, all my movie making classes told me that this is what an audience wanted to see. Well, we didn’t really have an audience, so they didn’t get a vote.

To compromise a little, I panned my camera across the two of them as part of a sweep of the entire room. There was nothing outside the front windows or door. The REM pod in the parlor sat quietly in the dark. The flash of distant combine lights lit up the upstairs balcony.

On the second floor, a wood door slammed… really far away.

Mike took off way too fast. It took a moment for Emily and me to realize that he was gone, then we had to catch up. He was already headed up the porch steps by the time we got around the corner. When we got in, and let our eyes adjust to the dark, we found him standing in the door between the dining room and the parlor.

Once I got the cameras aligned, I saw that he was just on the dining room side of the door, but just barely. He might as well have been a statue, as still as he was, just standing there and staring into the parlor where we thought the sound came from.

Emily caught up to him and stood beside him. She put her left hand on his shoulder, still holding her recorder in her other hand.

My filmmaker instincts told me the shot would be better if I got into the parlor so I could turn back to see their faces. Some other instinct told me I didn’t need to disturb the two of them just to try to get past them through the door. I wasn’t really sure I wanted to be in the parlor.

Emily whispered, “What do we do?”

“I don’t know,” Mike answered. “We have cameras and recorders in the room.”

“Should we try to talk to it?”

Even in the dark, I could see Mike shrug.

Emily dropped her hands to her sides, shook off her tension a little, and took about a quarter step forward. “Hello?” she said into the room. “Is someone here with us? Would you like to communicate with us?”

We waited with shallow breath for an answer.

“Are you hurt? Are you in danger?”

Again, the wait.

Then, a slight chirp, an electronic chirp.

Mike whispered to Emily, “Was that the REM pod?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. In a louder voice, she called into the room. “Was that you that caused the device to chirp? If you move close to it, it will give off a sound and some lights, but it won’t hurt you. It will only let us know that you are here.”

A bright flash of light filled the dining room. It seemed to come from the second floor. It caused my cameras to flicker. Me too.

“What was that?” I asked.

Mike looked around. “It was almost like headlights coming through the windows, but only the upstairs ones.”

Emily looked at the banister from the second floor landing. “How would we get headlights just up there?”

I turned the cameras to follow as Mike walked over to the front windows of the dining room. “There’s nobody in the driveway but us. Matt knows not to turn on any lights.” Mike pulled a walkie-talkie from his vest. “Hey, Matt, this is Mike.”

A moment later, Matt’s voice came through. “This is Matt. What’s up?”

“We just saw some lights like headlights, but only on the second floor. Did you see anything out there?”

Another brief pause before, “No, I didn’t see anything. Fleet didn’t see anything either. Did you say only the second floor?”

“Right, it looked like it came in through the second floor windows on the north side, but not the first floor.”

“Hold on.”

We assumed Matt was going to check on something, or send his helper, Fleet, to check on it. They were pretty useful out in their van. Matt, in particular, really knew his stuff. I learned a lot from him, a few things that saved me in some of my classes.

Matt came back. “I don’t know if this is the cause, but it’s an idea. It’s still harvest season, so some farmers may still be out on their combines, even in the dark. If we got one over the hill, the high-placed lights on the cab might shine upwards every time they get to this end of their field. If that’s the case, you might see the lights a few more times. Aftera couple more passes they will move on a bit and should stop showing up in the house. That’s one theory, anyway.”

A possible explanation reduced the tension in the room. I saw it in the slightly loosened postures of my two stars. I felt it in the tug of my camera rig on my shoulders.

Mike turned back to the parlor, with Emily following.

Mike pointed to the REM pod. “Are we getting anything else?”

‘Let’s try again.” Emily took a deep breath so she could project into the room and maybe the other realm, as though the deceased were hard of hearing. “Is there anything you want to tell us? Is there some way we can help you? We can use the device on the floor to help communicate.”

Again, just the slight rush of the wind through the house as we waited for signs.

A floorboard creaked, somewhere in the parlor.

Emily and Mike jumped a little, and I got it on video, assuming my little jump didn’t distort it.

“If you can move toward the device on the floor, we can use it to talk with you. Can you do that?”

Another slight creaking sound came from the parlor floorboards.

Then, one from the balcony.

We all turned to look up.

Mike flashed his light from side to side along the bannister, looking for anything that may have caused the noise. The light passing through the balusters caused flickering images on the decrepit wallpaper on the other side. It definitely added atmosphere to the scene, but didn’t help us see anything.

I always considered it my job to get the video and otherwise stay out of things. My investigators did the investigating and I made it look good, however, there were exceptions. In this case, I thought Mike seemed a little too excited and wasn’t thinking as clearly as he should. The time for intervention arrived.

“Guys,” I said, “the temperature has been dropping since the sun went down. With that kind of change, I’m sure this old place is going to make lots of those kinds of noises.”

“What?” Mike said as he turned to look at me. He seemed a little dazed and I was glad he didn’t turn his flashlight straight into the camera. “Huh? Oh, yeah, the temperature. An old place like this has no defense against thermal variations.”

He looked back toward the balcony, turned off his lights, and returned to the parlor door.

Mike’s change of demeanor worried me a little. He was the engineer; he should have been thinking about temperature changes. At the same time, I knew he and Emily had argued about the paranormal investigation thing and it was putting a lot of strain on the relationship. This was a sort of last chance to show that it was worthwhile or he was going to have to give it up, or give her up. He was a decent enough dude, but I had to side with my sister on this one.

Emily walked into the parlor, which required that I follow to the door to keep her in frame. She walked to the bedroom door and stopped beside it. There, she talked to the dead again.

“Were you attacked in this place? Did they hurt you here and take you away?”

Another quiet moment interrupted by a brief chirp on the REM pod.

This encouraged Emily. She pulled out her notebook and used a small light to read from it. “Are you Mary Rumpe? Did they hurt you and your husband John?”

A slightly longer chirp that time.

Beside me, I could feel Mike shuffling slightly. He was getting excited again. Some time ago, he and Emily decided that she would be the only one to talk during the EVP sessions unless she wasn’t there. This kept them from talking over each other. It also seemed that she asked better questions and could keep her excitement contained.

“Did they take you at the same time?”

The documents from the Historical Society said that John disappeared about a month before Mary. There was gossip and a local sheriff’s deputy claimed John abandoned his wife. Then the month passed and Mary went missing too. The same deputy said he thought she either ran off with a new man, or got word from her husband in his new place and went to be with him. Her uncle showing up to investigate changed some people’s speculation. When the deputy was killed by federal agents while trying to kill the uncle, a lot more stories got heard. Unfortunately, none of the stories came with evidence.

No sounds.

We got another flash of alleged combine lights from the second floor windows.

“If you’re Mary, did they take you after they took your husband?”

We all stood, awaiting a reply.

The REM pod flashed its bright green LED and shrieked for the briefest moment.

Mike and Emily stared at the device for a moment before staring at each other.

Emily quickly shook her head a couple of times, smoothed down her clothes, or at least tried, and cleared her throat. “Are you Mary Rumpe?”

We stood with our eyes glued to the REM pod.

Nothing.

She tried again. “Are you John Rumpe?”

Again, not a peep.

“What do you think?” Mike asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t think we got enough data to make any assumptions.” As an accountant, Emily liked data.

“Did you see anything pass by the REM pod when it went off? Like a wet leaf blowing by or something?”

Emily just shook her head no.

They looked to me. “I didn’t see anything. If there was something, it should show up on the videos.”

On a paranormal investigation, the brief pauses when we tried to figure out what to do or say next seemed to take on more gravity. If you stood in the dark, or near dark, with your brain tuned in to find anything that could possibly hint at unnatural things, the quiet gave your brain time to process all the normal little noises and feelings you ignored until then. Gradually, you filled up with a quiet tension, like your primitive ancestors sensing the approach of a predator under the shadows of the bushes.

“Hey guys,” came the voice.

We all jumped. It took a moment to realize that Matt’s voice came from the walkie-talkie. We followed that with nervous, uncomfortable laughs for a second.

Mike keyed the walkie-talkie. “Yeah, Matt, what have you got?”

“The cameras in the basement are showing the light on the REM pod down there flashing wildly. I’m not picking up any audio, so I can’t hear beeping. Still, you may want to check it out.”

“Great, we’ll head that way.” Mike put the walkie-talkie back in its pocket. ‘What do you think? Should we head down?”

“Yeah,” said Emily, “I think we’ve got all we can from here.”

I backed up a couple of paces so they could go toward the kitchen and the basement while I kept them in frame. I followed behind by a couple of paces.

As I got closer to the kitchen door, I saw another flash of those combine lights on the second floor.

Beta Team

Danny and Sarah pointed their headlamps into the hole in the floor. The light showed the wood stairs and a concrete floor, but only the wall next to the stairs. Any other walls were too far away.

“What do we do?” Sarah asked, with an obvious twinge of excitement on her voice.

“I think we have to check it out,” replied Danny, just as excited. He looked over the stairs more thoroughly, swinging his light from side to side on each step. “I’ll go down first to see if the old stairs will hold up. I’m going to go down along the side; maybe the supports will be stronger near the wall.”

I moved closer to the exterior wall of the barn so I could record him better.

He put his first foot carefully on the top step. Pausing to see if it held, he slowly lowered his weight down. Again, he paused. Still no problems. With his hands out to either side for balance, he picked up his trailing foot from the floor of the barn and moved it gently to the second step. As he shifted his weight, the stairs didn’t even creak.

He continued that pattern until he was all the way down. “I made it. Let me look around a minute to make sure it’s safe.”

From up top, I watched as he took a few steps, changing direction but not getting far from the bottom of the stairs. I couldn’t see what he saw, but only him. Sarah’s light never left him. After a moment, he came back to the base and called up, “I think it’s good. Come on down.”

Sarah went down a little more quickly than Danny, but still kept to the wall. As soon as she reached the floor, the two started meandering into the room.

“Hey!” I called, “Can I get some light on the stairs until I’m down?”

“Sorry.” Sarah pointed her headlamp toward the stairs so I could see where I was going. As soon as I hit the floor, she was back to searching.

I could have dug my own flashlight out of my pocket, but it might have interfered with the video and those two were supposed to watch out for me a little.

Watching their exploration, it looked like the room was pretty big, maybe twelve feet across and fifteen or a little more long. Wood shelves lined the longer walls and held cardboard and wood boxes. More boxes and some long wooden crates sat in a stack on the far wall. Dust and spiderwebs covered everything.

Danny let out a long, low whistle. “I think one of our farmers may have been up to something they shouldn’t have been.”

Sarah ran over to the pile of crates at the end of the room. “What do you suppose are in these?”

Danny joined her and I followed to keep them close by.

The long crates were about four feet long, each with a hinged lid and a latch. Thick, rusty padlocks hung from some of the latches, but not on the top crate.

Danny reached out carefully to the top box and swung its latch up out of the way. The metal made the slight squeaking sound of old rust as it moved. With that done, he tugged on the side of the lid to swing it open. It rose stiffly, but then fell back, crashing into the crate behind it and sending up a cloud of dust.

When the dust cleared enough, we could see the contents. Some sort of rotted, canvas-like cloth covered the real product: bolt-action rifles. From previous encounters, I knew none of us had any kind of expertise in firearms, so there was no telling what kind they were or whether they were any good. But, based on standard Internet trash talk, I figured a crate of antique guns, maybe from the nineteen-thirties, were probably worth a lot of money. The Historical Society was going to be very happy with this discovery.

“I think there’s ten in this box,” said Danny. He learned back and moved his headlamp around to get a count of the other boxes. “I count about seven crates, so that’s seventy of these guns just here. Who knows what’s in those other boxes.”

Again, I knew enough Internet geeks to cringe on their behalf at the description of these weapons as “guns”. It didn’t matter that, to the average person, the word had this specific meaning. I really needed to stay off Internet forums and get some real friends.

Sarah had already moved on to one of the smaller boxes. “The lid is nailed shut on this one.”

Danny looked it over, brushing the dust off.

The wood of this crate was much thinner than the others, which made sense for something smaller. There were also spaces between the individual boards, like you find in those old fruit crates they used to sell oranges in.

Danny tried to lift it, which he did easily, but as he did, the contents made the sound of glass clinking. He tilted the box to the other side and got the sound again. “I think these are bottles.”

“Do they feel full?” Sarah asked.

“Oh, yeah, for sure.”

Danny sat the box back where he got it. “Do you know what this means? There’s a good chance this room has been closed since Prohibition. That Jacob Rumpe guy may have been tied up with organized crime. That may be why he disappeared.” Again, the sense of excitement kept rising in his voice.

I tried to move so I could see both of their expressions. They faced each other, with their headlamps straight ahead, so there was plenty of light for the shot.

Their eyes had widened and their smiles broadened. They would be journaling and talking about this for the rest of their lives. I, on the other hand, was likely to only bring it up after a couple too many beers when hanging out at the bar. Still, it was a neat find, just not paranormal.

I decided I needed to disrupt their excitement so we could continue the investigation. “If that’s in this pile, I wonder what other stuff is in here?”

That did it. Their excitement redirected to the rest of the room.

Somehow they remained synchronized and both headed to the shelf on the wall opposite the stairs. As they did so, one of them kicked something that skittered across the floor with a high-pitched metallic sound.

“Stop.” Danny said. “Did you hear that? Did you hear where it went?”

They both began scanning the floor with their headlamps.

“I think it went this way,” said Sarah. She focused her light just ahead of her feet and walked slowly in the direction the thought was correct.

Danny assumed the same posture and walked in a line that would intersect hers. They shuffled slowly, not wanting to miss anything, and not wanting to kick anything else. After a few minutes, they caught up and something shined from the floor.

Sarah reached down for the object. “I think it’s one of those bullet shells, like the things that come out of the side of the gun after someone shoots.” She turned it over in her fingers a couple of times and then offered it to Danny.

Danny gave it a similar inspection. “I think you’re right; it does look like the remains of a bullet. I wonder who was shooting down here. Do you think maybe this was the bullet that killed Jacob Rumpe?”

Excitement filled their expressions again. Some day their faces were going to stick like that.

But Danny still had questions. “Did you notice the floor where you picked this up? I thought it looked darker than the rest of the floor.”

“How could you tell with all the dust?” Sarah asked.

“I don’t know, it was just something that stood out.” He handed the shell casing back to Sarah and then knelt down on the floor. Supporting himself on one hand, he used the other to brush dust, dirt, and cobwebs from the place where she found the metal.

That part did seem darker, so he expanded his hand sweeping to reach the wider area, going until he reached the lighter color of the rest of the floor. After a few minutes, he concluded that he had uncovered all there was to uncover. He stood up and adjusted his headlamp to cover the entire area.

The dark area appeared to be a stain. The stain covered an unusual pattern. It wasn’t the circle or oval of a spill. It wasn’t the trail of something spilled in transit. Instead, it looked like the silhouette of a person, or most of a person, including a head, torso, a couple of crumpled arms, and the top part of legs. The stain stood as a rust color against the gray of the concrete.

Danny stepped away from the stain. “Oh, wow,” he said.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. The likely contraband in the crates suggested criminal activity, probably organized crime. That missing farmer was probably associated with it. A spent shell casing in a basement said someone had a reason to fire a gun down here. Now, it looked like someone probably bled out. Even without the idea of hauntings, this was enough to make me want to leave.

Sarah stared at the spot on the floor, first stepping back, and then stepping forward again. “We should do an EVP session.”

Danny’s eyes never moved from the stain. “Yeah, you’re right. We should do a session.”

She raised her hand, holding out her recorder. “Is someone here? Does anyone want to speak with us?”

We waited for the response.

And waited some more.

I wasn’t sure I wanted a response, but I knew what it meant for the love birds.

She tried again. “Jacob Rumpe, is this where you died? Is that your blood on the floor? Is this from the bullet that killed you?” She held up the casing.

Still nothing.

As I kept their faces in frame, I noticed a change in their expressions. It was subtle and difficult to describe. Their usual excitement held something else now. Apprehension? Fear? I wasn’t sure, but I had the impression that an actual possible death was a little too real. They had always seemed very childlike in their investigations, as though it was a make-believe game of some sort. A real death may have been too grown-up for their tastes.

“Should we keep trying?” she asked.

Danny seemed to think for a moment. “I don’t know. The recorder may have picked up something we couldn’t hear. I think we should get more equipment from Matt and set it up down here while we look in the rest of the barn.”

A sudden sound from behind me crawled up my spine and into the primitive parts of my brain. Sarah and Danny both turned to look toward the source of the sound.

“Did you hear that?” Danny whispered.

“Yes,” Sarah answered.

“Me too.” I wasn’t staying out of that conversation.

They walked past me toward the source, and I fell in behind them to record.

The sound seemed like a whisper, like someone trying to get our attention but not the attention of anyone else. Worse, it seemed to come from under the stairs, the same stairs we needed to climb out of this pit.

Danny called out, “Is anybody there?”

No response came.

He looked at Sarah for guidance, but she shook her head slightly. She had no ideas either. I was glad they didn’t ask me.

Danny took another step toward the stairs. “Maybe we can help you. Can you talk to us?”

The trapdoor to the basement slammed shut.

The sound echoed through the room, leaving us standing there.

Tech Team

Matt finished talking to the Alpha Team about the REM pot in the basement. He moved to set his walkie-talkie into its chagrin base and changed his mind.

“Matt to Beta Team. Matt to Beta Team.”

He waited for a response.

He checked the frequency settings and volume control before trying again. “Matt to Beta Team. I’m checking in with you. Is everything ok?”

Still no response.

He turned to his runner, Fleet, who sat at the back of the van with the dog. “Remind me to check their walkie-talkies when they get back.”

Setting his walkie-talkie back on its stand, he reached for his cell phone. A quick glance showed enough bars to get started. He thumbed through the contacts to find Danny. He pressed “dial” and waited. Straight to voicemail. The same happened on his calls to Sarah and Max.

He turned to his assistant again. “Hey, Fleet. I can’t reach anybody on Beta Team, walkie or cell. Must be some serious interference over there. Run on over and check on them, ok?”

“By myself?”

“Dude, you’re like twenty-years-old. They used to draft guys younger than you for war. Grab a flashlight and head on over. Just see that they’re ok and come on back. If they aren’t ok, find out what they need and then come back so we can call an ambulance or something.”

The assistant pushed the back door open and hopped out. Feeling the cold October air, he pulled his hood up. Then, grabbing a spare light from a box, he closed the van door and headed toward the barn.

We got all the equipment in place and waited around the van until a little after seven o’clock. We wanted to make sure the sun was down enough that it would be really dark. That’s when big sis suggested that we take a sweep around the house to get started. At the same time, Beta Team headed toward the barn.

Mike waved his flashlight toward the area that we thought had been a garden. “We should probably check around over there too. Maybe get the clothesline poles and the edge of the yard on the way.” Emily agreed, so off we went.

It was hard to get Mike out of the habit of using his flashlight. Even with no moonlight, we were outside and the stars gave enough light to see by, but you had to let your eyes adjust. Worse, my cameras were each set for their own light level and they needed to adjust. Too much light and I got no picture.

“Watch your step,” Mike said as he got to the edge of the garden.

“Yeah,” Emily agreed, “It seems pretty rough.

Someone had churned up the ground at some time, making little rows for planting. Since then, whatever plants grew had withered. In the camera screen, they looked like a mass of little tentacles reaching up to snare their next victim. If we didn’t watch our steps, we could be those victims.

Emily stopped and pulled her audio recorder from its pocket in her vest. “Hello,” she called out. “Is there anyone here? We are here to get your story told. Is there anything you want to say?”

We all stood still to give anything a chance to speak.

I tried to keep my camera on both Mike and Emily during these EVP sessions. Trying to catch Electronic Voice Phenomenon events was a big thing in the paranormal investigation community. I wasn’t sure we would pick up anything more than the rustling of the October breeze through trees and grasses.

Bud didn’t say anything about hauntings in the garden, but it never hurt to check everywhere on the property. Really, what could go so horribly bad that it would cause a haunting in a garden? Images of chopped up bodies being tilled into the soil filled my head and I wished I hadn’t wondered about that.

The moment passed when Mike and Emily, somehow synchronized, turned to start walking again.

We made our way over to the treeline. There were enough broken branches and twigs to keep us from getting too close. The ground was more even there, compared to the garden. I swept the camera around the trees, first toward the horizon and then toward the base of the trees. The horizon was just to be thorough; I didn’t expect to catch anything. The base of the trees was to see if there were any little critters in our investigation area.

Critters were an issue for us. Obviously, they could cause many haunting-like activities, such as making noise or stealing little things. They could also decide to chew through parts of our equipment. Worst of all, they startle our investigators, making the investigators scream like little children, and seriously disrupting the mood of the investigation. I’ve kept some of the video of those incidents even after everyone wanted the record destroyed.

“Did you hear that?” Mike jumped around and froze.

Emily immediately turned her head in the direction Mike was looking and then she froze too.

As quietly as I could, I turned to point my camera toward Mike’s looking direction, trying to keep both of them in frame as best I could.

We all stood as silently as we could.

Emily raised the recorder, which was still in her hand. I saw her push the record button.

A sound came from a short way off. It was soft, barely audible.

It was a moan.

I almost forgot to reorient my cameras to capture the reactions of my investigators. I liked to think I was immune to this haunting stuff, but a moan in the dark still set my heart beating fast.

“Is there somebody here?” Emily asked. She extended the recorder toward the sound.

Mike took a step toward the direction of the sound.

The sound came out again.

Emily and Mike exchanged glances. Emily seemed worried. Mike’s face filled with glee.

Mike took another step.

This time, Emily followed. I followed them, trying to move behind them so I could keep both of them in the picture and look between them toward the source of the moan.

Three more steps, and Mike stopped.

Through the camera, I saw that he stood next to the clothesline pole closest to the road. He leaned in to listen, then reached out to touch it.

“I think I found our sound,” he said. “The pole is made of hollow steel pipe. The side here has a rust hole. The wind blows across it and we get that sound. See, it stops if I put my hand over it.”

He put his hand over the hole and the sound stopped. When he took his hand off, the sound started again. We watched it for a moment, documenting what happened. The stronger the wind, and if it had a slightly south-western source, the higher the pitch of the sound.

“I wonder how many people hear this when they think they hear someone being beaten up.” Emily said.

“That’s a good point,” Mike replied. “We should probably cover this up so we don’t hear it again when listening for other things.” He checked several pockets on his vest before finding a folded piece of tape large enough for the hole. The tape was intended for holding down camera wires or other quick fixes, but it would serve.

With the tape in place, the sound stopped. We could move on.

From the clothesline, we headed to the southwest corner of the house, the kitchen end. At each window, and at the kitchen door, we stopped to listen. Where the opening was low enough, I tried to point the cameras in. We made it past the back wall of the house, including the kitchen and master bedroom. Then we rounded the corner.

The first set of windows on the eastern wall still looked into the bedroom. Knowing that there had been reports from there, we lingered a little longer at each one.

Emily held her recorder to the window frame. “Is there anyone here? Do you want to tell us what happened?”

Through the camera, I could see the room, empty except for our equipment. The bedroom contained a motion-activated camera, an extra sound recorder, and a REM pod. The Radiating Electromagnetism pod was like a theremin, one of those spooky musical instruments that you play just by waving your hands around in their electromagnetic fields. The REM pod should pick up the presence of disruptive lifeforce energy that gets into its range. When that happens, we’ll get flashing lights and beeping. Raccoons love them.

With no response, we moved to the next set of windows, the ones from the parlor. Emily again held up her recorder. “Is there anyone here? We are here to help you.”

My camera picked up the same equipment as we put into the bedroom. Bud said this was the room where people heard sounds of a fight and maybe something involving a woman. We wanted to capture any evidence of this one. Mike had set up extra cameras and audio recorders in the dining room that were pointed into the parlor.

Again, we stood silent, awaiting some sign. Unfortunately, all we heard was the lonely sigh of the cold autumn wind.

“Ooph”

We froze.

Mike turned to Emily and mouthed the words, “Did you hear that?”

Her eyes went big. She turned to face him directly and nodded a yes. Then she turned back to the window.

Her hand had been resting on the window frame, holding the recorder into the room. She started to pull her hand back, hesitated, then pulled back just enough so the recorder was still inside, but her hand was as outside as it could otherwise be.

We waited more.

Mike’s head bobbed a little, full of excitement and ready to go.

Emily’s eyes focused on the window, looking for absolutely any reason to jump back.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure what was going on with me. Part of me was just as excited as Mike. The other part filled with frustration because nothing showed up on camera. As a budding filmmaker, a blank screen meant failure.

Mike finally broke the silence by whispering, “Let’s go inside!”

He spun and practically ran around the corner to the front of the house and toward the door.

Beta Team

I watched the Alpha Team head toward the house: Mike and Emily, followed by Skippy the Wonder Cameraman. I adjusted my own camera rig and called to Danny and Sarah, “Hey guys, we should probably get started.” Naturally, they were way more interested in each other than in anything else going on.

I turned away a minute to give them a chance to untangle. If this place wasn’t really haunted, I was in for a long third-wheel kind of night. I thought about seeing if I could change places with Josh so he could work Beta Team and I could walk around with Mike and his sister. At least those two weren’t getting along well enough to make me uncomfortable.

Maybe I should consider bringing a date to these things.

We finally got underway and headed straight for the door the old man showed us earlier. When we set up the cameras and stuff earlier, we also pulled the weeds so it would be safer to get in and out.

Outside, the stars had been enough to see by. Most farms had those street lights in the yard so you could see where they were from a distance. I guessed they killed the one here about the same time they pulled the electricity from the house. Maybe thieves stole the street light for the scrap metal.

Inside the barn, it was way dark, like waking up drunk at two in the morning in somebody’s basement with no lights or windows dark. After a moment, I could see the sky through the open haydoor in the opposite wall. Just what the lovebirds needed, a romantic skylight.

After a moment of adjusting, Danny said, “I think we’re going to need lights. We’ll never be able to move around in here like this.”

Sarah said, “I agree. How much? Flashlights? Headlamps? What do you think, Max?”

Ah good, they remembered that I was there. “If you use the headlamps on the lowest setting, it’ll be easier on my cameras.”

They both reached up and turned on their lights.

With the newfound light source, the starlight of the haydoor disappeared. Instead, we had two small pools of light and the ambient bounce from anything they hit. As Romeo and Juliet looked around, the spots jumped wildly from place to place. I knew from experience that they would settle down after a minute or two.

Danny asked, “So, where should we start?”

“I don’t know,” said Sarah. “Do we want to see if we can find the grunting first or search the little rooms?”

“If the grunting is just a couple of boards, we’ll probably just have to wait until the wind blows the right way. Do you have any other ideas?”

“Well,” said Sarah, “Bud said some people thought it might be a pig. We could try an EVP session to see if we can get a pig.”

“That’s brilliant!” Danny exclaimed.

I was glad they couldn’t see my face; I’m sure my eye roll was very noticeable. Ghost hunting was kind of cool, but I didn’t really buy into it in a serious way. This was just something interesting to do and some of the geeks I hung out with thought it was cool. I always thought EVP was a bit hokey, but EVP to contact a pig?

Sarah started, “Hey there. Who’s a good… What should I say? A good boy? A good girl?”

Danny chirped, “Try saying good pig. That should be good enough.”

“Who’s a good pig? Eh? Can you talk to us? Can you give us a good grunt?”

I kept my camera on both of them the whole time.

They stood listening, their heads cocked to the side. Each held out a digital audio recorder, hoping to catch piggy noises that our ears might miss.

We all stood quietly for about two or three minutes. They were very determined to give the ghost pig a chance.

Still, nothing.

Danny’s recorder hand dropped to his side. Sarah’s did the same.

“We can try again later,” Danny said.

Sarah nodded agreement. “Besides, maybe something will show up on the recorders.”

That thought perked them up and the hopeful smiles returned to their faces.

After a moment of renewed enthusiasm, Sarah spoke again, “Maybe we should check those rooms.”

Danny asked, “Which end do we want to start with?”

Sarah seemed to think for a moment. “I don’t know.” She turned to face me. “Didn’t you say the middle two were the most interesting?”

I wouldn’t say interesting, but I knew what she meant. “Yeah, the two on either end are just little rooms with no features. We have cameras in there. The middle ones have windows out to the feedlot and one has a door leading out.”

“How about we start with the middle room without the door and do the door one next,” Danny suggested.

“Great!” Sarah said.

I followed as they practically skipped toward the door to the little room, their headlamps sending light randomly over the wall containing the doors. I decided that some part of both of them stopped developing at the age of seven.

In the room, they split up a little, but not too much. They didn’t like to be too far apart. Both picked a window to look out. Each window was a frame divided into six smaller panes in three rows of two. Sarah’s window was missing one pane in the lower right. Danny’s pane was missing two at top and one in the left middle.

On some unknown signal, they both turned back into the room.

“Do you see anything?” Danny asked.

“No, do you?” Sarah answered.

“How about you, Max? You see anything?” Nice of Danny to include me.

‘No, nothing showing up on any of the cameras.”

Sarah pulled out her recorder again. “EVP time?”

Danny answered by showing his own recorder.

“Is there anybody here with us?” Sarah started. “Can you try to talk to us?”

She paused for a moment to allow for an answer.

Even though I never really believed that there would be a voice, I still listened. I guess I kind of hoped there would be someday. It would probably give me something to believe in.

“What did Bud say was the name of the farmer who disappeared?” Sarah asked.

Danny pulled a small notebook from a vest pocket and turned a few pages. “It was Jacob Rumpe.”

“Thanks.” Sarah turned back to the room. “Jacob Rumpe, are you here? Did something bad happen to you here?”

Again, we waited.

The wind blew past the broken windows, but that didn’t sound like a voice. I also heard my own pulse in my ears. My nostrils picked up on all the dust, tinged with the scent of old hay. I was pretty sure I tasted the hay dust too.

Still no results.

“Let’s check the next room,” Danny chimed.

We filed out of the first room, along the wall into the next room, the one with the outside door.

Danny immediately went to the door and tried to open it. Like I experienced earlier in the day, it would only move a little before springing back.

“Hey,” he said. “I’m going to try to move this door in different ways to see if it sounds like grunting.”

He pushed hard and looked back expectantly.

Sarah shook her head no, her light moving accordingly.

He tried to deliberately rub the edge of the door against the frame. Still no grunt.

After a few more grunt-less attempts, he gave up.

Knowing what to do, they each produced their recorders for an EVP thing.

“Jacob Rumpe, can you hear us? Can you let us know you are here?” We gave it the requisite pause before the next questions. “Is there anybody here willing to talk to us? We are trying to find out what happened here so we can help.”

Still no joy in EVP town.

Without the slightest sign of dejection, my investigators headed out and toward the next room.

As we walked, a creaking sound came from the wood flooring, but not directly under us. Instead, it came from nearer the outside wall of the barn. Instinctively, we all froze.

“Did you hear where it came from?” Sarah asked.

“I think it was over there.” Danny pointed and tried to align his headlamp to where he was pointing.

“Do you think it was grunt-like?”

“No, it sounded more like just a creaky floor. Let’s check it out real quick, you know, in case it’s dangerous.” Danny’s voice rose with excitement.

We moved cautiously forward, listening for more creaking noises. Each step brought more soft sounds of wood against wood until we were in line with the bit of wooden floor against the outer wall.

“What do we do now?” Danny asked.

He took one more step forward and the floor fell away beneath his foot. He screamed as he lurched forward.

These situations leave me torn. As the camera guy, I’m supposed to hang back and catch everything on video. On the other hand, I should have probably been a bro and tried to grab him before he plunged to his doom. Then there was the fact that Sarah was between me and him.

In the light from Sarah’s headlamp, I saw that the entire floor raised up, becoming a wall near where Danny was falling.

He caught himself on the new wall.

All of us stood, breathing hard and trying to recover from this latest twist.

Danny pulled himself from the hole in the floor that opened by the drawbridge-like door. He moved back a few steps.

“Are you alright?” asked Sarah as she ran her hands over him to check him out.

‘Yeah,” he said, “just caught off guard. What is that thing?”

They turned their attention, and lights to the new wall. Following down to where it came out of the floor showed an opening where the boards had been. They leaned over to look in and I repositioned to get the cameras lined up.

The hole in the floor contained wood stairs leading down into a new room.

As soon as we pulled up to the farm house, I pulled the door open to get out. Sitting in the cramped back seat with Danny and Sarah for the whole trip was uncomfortable. They really should just get a room and skip the investigation. At least I wasn’t Emily’s little brother shoved in the cargo area.

I stretched as soon as my feet hit the ground. The cold breeze hit my face and fired up my circulation. Continuing with a sort of stretch-walk combination, I ambled back to the van that just pulled up. Unlike Emily’s wunderkind brother, Josh, I didn’t carry a camera everywhere. I just helped out with the video stuff; wasn’t trying to become the next Scorcese. My equipment rode in the back of the van.

Danny and Sarah caught up with me just as the van doors stopped. We gave Matt and his helper, Fleet, a minute to get themselves situated; it had been just as long a ride for them.

“We put your gear just inside the back doors,” Matt said. Matt was an old highschool friend of Mike’s. He ran a video conversion service and did some freelance editing. For these investigations, he watched the cameras and recordings from the monitors in the van. He seemed to like doing what he did, at least a little.

My investigators and I, the Beta Team, walked around to the back doors. I knew what to expect, so I pulled the first door open and stepped back behind it.

A large, yellow blur flew out of the open door, bounded a short distance across the yard, then turned back. In an instant he had his front paws up on Danny’s chest.

Danny rubbed him behind the ears. “Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy? It’s you, isn’t it?”

Rumples was a retired search dog of some sort. Danny adopted her when her hips went bad, or something. He insisted on bringing Rumples along to look for signs of animals at the haunting sites. Rumples was well disciplined but Danny wasn’t. That led to problems, so Rumples spent most of his time tied up at the van with Matt watching him. Most clients didn’t want a friendly, furry monster running all over their house.

I grabbed my battery belt and fastened it around my waist. Next, the camera frame, an aluminum structure with shoulder straps, hung from my shoulders with its own waist strap. I plugged the battery cables into the cameras, one low-light, one infrared, and one normal. Each fired up as the juice flowed.

Sarah grabbed her and Danny’s vests and headlamps while Danny played with Rumples. She put on her kit, and set Danny’s on the floor of the van by the door. While DAnny suited up, Sarah held back Rumples who had discovered his food bowl in the van.

A large man came around the side of the van, causing all of us to jump. At first, I just saw the red, plaid coat, then the rest of him. “Hi,” he said, “they call me ‘Bub’. Which one of you folks is going to be looking at the barn?”

Danny, friendly as ever, held up his hand. “Hi, Bub. My name’s Danny. This is Sarah. The one with the cameras is Max. We’ll be in the barn tonight. What can you tell us about it?”

“Lots!” Bub said, with way too much enthusiasm. “Want the tour before the sun gets too low?”

“Sure.” piped Danny.

Bub turned and strode off toward the barn. He had a really long step. Danny and Sarah ran after him. I hit record on the normal-light camera and followed, trying to keep everybody in the shot.

The barn looked to be in good shape for its age. The paint had almost all peeled, leaving just a little red as a reminder of times past. Some of the windows were broken, but the low sun glinted from the remaining panes. They looked dirty, and a few were cracked. Weeds grew up around the foundation, but the old stones still showed through.

“Out back,” Bub described while pointing, “you can still see the feedlot. Weeds are growing up through the broken concrete. There’s still a few of the fence posts. Nobody ever reported anything spooky out there. They say all the things happened inside the barn.”

I panned the camera over to the old feedlot, zooming to get a little more detail, what there was of it. There seemed to be some larger chunks of concrete slabs that had been the floor of the lot. Weeds, mostly thistles, stuck up through the cracks. They wore their October brown. The fence posts he mentioned still stood around the perimeter. Even from a distance I could see they wouldn’t last much longer, all split and weathered.

Then, I took the camera across the roof of the barn. I’d seen plenty of these old barns. The tall, peaked roof meant there was probably a haydoor on the other end. That meant the inside would have a hayloft on the second level and animal pens or work rooms on the ground floor. There was probably a big, empty space in the middle.

To get a sense of place, I spun around to show the distance to the road. As steadily as I could, I followed the road to the driveway, then up to the house, and back around to the barn. I paused for a moment at the house. Graffiti covered its walls, at least on the lower floor. As I got back to the barn, I looked carefully. There were no signs of any graffiti there. Maybe something on the other sides or inside, even, but nothing I could see. That seemed weird.

Bub tugged on an old door, fighting against a clump of grass that had grown in front. I jogged a little to catch up, getting there just as he got the door open.

I stepped into the dim insides of the barn. The screen on the back of my camera flickered as it adjusted. Beams of sunlight streamed in from the west windows, showing sparkles of dust.

Most of the structure looked like it was in good shape. The large beams of the frame seemed solid and straight. Looking up, some of the rafters and walls sagged a bit. Some light sifted in through the cracks in the wall boards and the holes in the roof. Other than the dust, and us, it sat empty.

The opening for the large haydoor opened in the far wall, toward the peak in the roof. Facing east, not as much sunlight came in that way. The remains of ropes and pulleys still hung near the top of the opening. Below that, the hayloft extended half way down the length of the barn and completely down both sides.

On the south side, walls with doors sealed the area beneath the loft, probably to make work rooms or storage. Fences did something similar on the north side to make livestock pens. I caught the scent of hay, dust, and just a little animal smell to suggest it was probably hogs.

Bub started up again. “The barn is unusual. Hooligans go into the house and tear things up and paint all over. Then they run off claiming it’s haunted. They don’t do that out here. Something about this barn, especially at night, keeps them away. They say it’s the grunting.”

Danny and Sarah exchanged excited glances. This spooky stuff really got them excited.

“The grunting?” Danny asked.

“Well, that’s what they say,” Bub answered. “You see, one of the fellows that disappeared from the farm was Jacob Rumpe. He used to raise pigs. There were a lot of rumors about him, saying he was up to all kinds of no good. When he disappeared, people came up with all kinds of theories. One was that he was eaten by his pigs. There’s no more reason to believe that than anything else, but people like a good story.”

“When did he disappear?” Sarah asked.

“Let’s see, that was back in 1930,” Bub answered. “It was during Prohibition and all that organized crime. It was also the start of the Great Depression. A lot of people went missing back then, for a lot of reasons, so there’s no telling what really happened.”

Danny asked, “Do people actually think they hear grunting or is that just a story going around?”

“It’s hard to say,” Bub said. “If you’ve been drinking or hitting the dope, a couple of loose boards rubbing together can sound like anything. Whatever it is, the kids don’t come out here, day or night.”

Sarah pointed toward the interior doors on the south side. “Does anything happen in those rooms?”

“Not that I know of. Like I said, nobody comes in here so their stories don’t get more specific.”

“Ok,” said Danny. “We better get our equipment set up. It’ll be six-thirty soon and we’ll be in the dark.” He turned to Bub. “Thanks for all your help, Bub. You sound like you really know what’s going on around here. It’s really appreciated.”

“Happy to help,” Bub said. Then he shook Danny’s hand, nodded to Sarah and myself, and headed out through the same door we came in.

Danny, Sarah, and I huddled together.

“What do you think?” Danny asked.

I pointed to the loft. “I’d like to set up a camera at this end to catch the loft and the big, open space underneath. That should get most of the barn. We’ll need to go into those rooms to decide what to do there.”

“I like it,” Sarah said. “I also think we should set up a couple of directional microphones to see if we can catch the grunting sound. It may be just a couple of loose boards. If so, we shouldn’t have any trouble finding them and replicating the effect.”

“Ok,” Danny said, clapping his hands together. “You guys know what you’re doing. Let’s get it done.”

The other two headed back to the van for the basic equipment. I stayed behind to take a quick look at the rooms. If I left them to check the rooms, they’d probably find one too romantic and get distracted.

As expected, the rooms were small. Their doors opened easily, though some of the strap hinges screeched with rust. There were six in total. The middle two contained windows to the south, letting in some light and showing the feedlot.

The fourth room also contained an external door. I checked it. Like the door Bub fought with, this was barricaded by overgrowth. Like the windows, it opened to the feedlot. In general, one camera per room, just in case, would be adequate. Matt had a lot of little motion-activated cameras just for spaces like these.

The floor on the barn, in front of the rooms and on the west end, was wood. The rest seemed to be concrete, probably added after the original barn construction. I wasn’t sure if it served some sort of purpose, but I ran the camera over it anyway. It was always good to capture details, especially anomalies. Who knows, maybe those were the grunting boards.

I thumbed the walkie-talkie on my camera frame. “Hey, Danny.”

“This is Danny” came the response.

“For those rooms, I think just six of those little motion-activated jobs should do.”

“Roger. I’ll get those.” Danny liked to use words like “roger” when using the walkie-talkies.

I took one more look around the barn while waiting for the others, mostly to find someplace comfortable.

I didn’t get as excited about these investigations as the others did, especially Danny and Sarah. I just did it as something to do. In the twelve investigations I’d been on, we never found any actual haunting. This was just going to be a cold night of walking around filming the two lovebirds going crazy over every little noise. At least I was out of the house.